In the middle of some turmoil involving our own two cats, we had some added excitement in January thanks to my randomly deciding to take Ruffie for a short walk to meet Alan at the bus stop at 20:45 Saturday night. On the way down there, I found a small carrier with what seemed to be an animal inside.

It was going to be hard to check it out without Ruffie getting too excited, so I kept walking till we met Alan, then came back. I held Ruffie and Alan checked if it was alive. I was thinking it might be a dog based on it’s size, but it was a cat. It seemed scared but alive. We brought it back to the house to figure out what to do.

A male cat I found in a carrier abandoned on a sidewalk near the bus stop.

He turned out to be a boy, with sharp claws and not neutered. I assumed he was intentionally abandoned based on the location away from houses, at night, in a carrier. But I made a post on the Neighbors app people seem to use most for lost animal postings. In the meantime, we put the cat in the laundry room with a litter box, food and water. He went to hide behind the laundry machine right away, but I figured he’d be all right. I added a heated floor mat for him to sleep on if he came out.

I was pretty sure we would not be able to keep him ourselves. Our other male cat, Kiko, is a bully to pretty much any other cat. It took a long time for him to just barely get along with our newer female cat, Nori. And despite them living together in our house for two years now, we are considering moving them into a permanent outdoor catio if I can build something big enough and with enough protection from the elements. They constantly pee on things, from carpets to pillows to the couch. And after spending several hours dealing with cleaning the couch three days in a row, Alan decided to buy a small catio online. And I of course then decided to build something bigger. Hence, I bought some materials recently in preparation for that, including the heating pad. For now, we are keeping the cats in a smaller outdoor catio during the day, and I move them into my office at night.

Abandoned cat pees on the floor right next to the litter box I gave him.

And this new cat was already causing problems. Small problems, and I can’t blame him, but man, his pee is extremely fragrant. He peed on the floor the first night instead of in the litter box, perhaps because he’s not used to our pine pellet litter. I cleaned it up, but the whole room smelled very strongly of urine for several days after. I thought for sure he peed behind the washer. But at least he seemed to be chill now.

The next day he seemed happy enough hanging out on the heated mat I gave him, which I had just bought in preparation for building an outdoor catio for our other cats.

No one claimed the cat on my post, though I got about two dozen comments. We decided to take this new cat to the shelter given that he is not fixed and thus shouldn’t just be released outside, even if he weren’t clearly formerly someone’s indoor cat. But it was going to have to wait a few more days, because we didn’t get a chance to bring him Sunday, and the shelter would be closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and then two more days due to budget cuts. That got me looking at the shelter website quite a lot. And then I started looking at their dogs needing urgent help page (which, if you do click and it shows 0 dogs, you’ll need to refresh the page once). Oh, boy, what an emotional experience that started to become.

By the second day, he was seeking attention when I walked in the room.

The next few days went fine, other than Alan decided to put in an application to foster a dog. There were a few dogs that caught our attention, including an energetic shepherd named Britney and a small husky girl named Winter. We decided to see about meeting some dogs after we brought in the cat.

Thursday came, and we bid farewell to this chonky guy. I made sure to specify on the forms that if for some reason he was not adoptable, I would be willing to bring him back home and figure something out. I certainly didn’t want to contribute to the lack of shelter space and need to euthanize animals for that reason.

We were finally able to bring him to Oakland Animal Services after they were closed three days in a row. He didn't seem enthused, but wasn't freaking out at least.

In the following days, I monitored their website. First they put up a lost and found listing with his photo, which had him looking fairly sad. But then about a week later, he suddenly showed up on their adoptable cats page. He was looking much better, and he was now called Ralph. Then I checked it a couple of hours later, and he had already been adopted! They must have a much easier time adopting out cats than dogs. But good for Ralph, I hope his new home is warm and loving!